Rain-stitched Derry meets cornfield nowhere as a once‑in‑a‑century overlap hits: 23 days of feasting colliding with 27 years of waking. A red balloon skims the tassels; far off, a truck’s horn smiles. The cut ricochets between storm drains and gravel roads—calliope notes souring into fan‑belt growls, missing posters stapled over scarecrows that weren’t there yesterday. A school bus brakes on a covered bridge; taillights smear red while a license plate refuses to read the same twice. In the funhouse, mirrors grin back with teeth that aren’t yours; in the silo, kernels roar like rain as something circles overhead.

Survivors try the only plan that makes sense: bait the monsters into each other. Helium‑laced lures bob along fence lines, straw dummies wear hockey pads and clown paint, and a sewer grate opens onto a barn that shouldn’t be connected to any street. Edits bite on horn blasts and giggles; wings puncture balloons; balloons answer with confetti that has teeth. Final sting: the truck door swings open to an empty cab as a red balloon drifts into it—and the calliope and horn harmonize.